The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1887-10-28

pieces on injured your pusihoSS, pehu ofer
your midnight pillow and drive from you one
of the greatest blessings that God can offer
sweet, refreshing, all invigorating sleepf
Why not fence out your enemies by the
golden bars of the sunset! Why not stand
behind the barricade OF evening cloud and
say to them: "Thus far and no fartherp
Many man and many woman is having
the health of body as well as the health Of
soul eaten away by malevolent spirit. /
have in time of religious awakening had per-
sons night after night come into the inquiry
room and get no peace Of soul. After
while | have bluntly asked her: "Is there
not some one against whom you have a
hatred that YOU are not willing to give upY'
After u little confusion she has slightly
whispered, ''Yes." Then / said to her: "You
will never find peace with God as long as
you retain that virulence."
A boy in Sparta, having stolen fox, kept
him under his coat, and, though the fox was
gnawing his vitals, he submitted to it rather
than expose his misdeed. Many man with
a smiling face has under his jacket an ami
mostly that is gnawing away tho strength of
his body and the integrity of his soul. Better
get rid of that hidden fox as soon as possible.
There are hundreds of domestic circles where
that which most is needed is the spirit of for
giveness. Brothers apart and sisters apart
and parents and children apart. Solomon
says a brother offended is harder to he won
than a strong city. Are there not enough
sacred memories of your childhood t. bring
you together! The rabbins recount how that
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS son had such a spite
against his father that after he was
dead he had his father burned to
ashes, and then put the ashes into
four sacks, and tied them to four eagles
necks which few away in opposite directions.
And there are now domestic antipathies
which seem forever to have scattered all
parental memories to the four winds of
heaven. How far the eagles fly with that
sacred ashes! The hour of shutdown makes to
that family no practical suggestion. Thomas
Carlyle, in his biography Of Frederick the
Great, says the old king was told by the con-
fessor he must be at peace with his enemies if
he wanted to enter heaven. Then he said to
his wife, the queen: "Write to your brother
after am dead that forgive him" Roloff,
the confessor, said "Her majesty had better
write him immediately NO" said the
king, latter I am dead; that will be safer"
So he let the sun of his earthly existence 60
down upon his wrath.
Again: We ought not to allow the sun set
before forgiveness takes place. because we
might not live to see another day. And what
if we should be ushered into the presence of
our Maker with a grudge upon our soul! The
majority of people depart this life in the
night. Between IL o'clock p. m. and 3 o'clock
a. m there is something in the atmosphere
which relaxes the grip which the body has on
the soul, and most of people enter the next
world through the shadows of this world.
Perhaps God may have arranged it in
that way so as to make the con-
trast the more glorious. l have seen
sunshiny days in this world that must have
been almost like the radiance Of heaven. But
as most people leave the earth between sun
down and sunrise, they quit this world at its
darkest, and heaven, always bright, will be
the brighter for that contrast. Out of black
ness into irradiation. Shall we then leap over
the roseate bank of sunset into the favorite
hunting ground of disease and death, carry
ing our animosities with us? Who would
want to confront his God, against
whom we have all done meaner things
than anybody has ever done against
us, carrying old grudges? How can we ex-
pect his forgiveness for the greater when we
are not willing to forgive Others the less?
Napoleon was encouraged to undertake the
crossing of the Alps because Charlemagne
had previously crossed them. And all this
rugged path of forgiveness bears the bleeding
footsteps of him who conquered through
suffering, and we ought to be willing to fol-
low. On the night of our departure from
this life into the next, our one plea will have
to be for mercy, and it will have to be
offered in the presence of him who has
said: eff you forgive not men their tres
passes neither will your heavenly Father for
give your trcspasses." What a sorry plight
if we sand there hating this one, and hating
that one, and wishing this one damage, and
wishing some one else calamity, and we
ourselves needing forgiveness for 10, 600 times
10000 obiiquities of heart and life. When
our last hour comes, we want it to find us all
right. Hardly anything affects me so much
in the uncovering Of ancient Pompeii as the
account of the soldier who, after the city had
for many centuries been covered with the
ashes and scoria of Vesuvius, was found
standing in his place ON guard, hand on spear
and helmet on head. Others fled at the awful
encouragement, but the explorer, 100 years
after, found the body of that brave fellow in
right position. And ii will be Il grand thing
if, when cur last moment comes, we are
found in right position toward the world, as
well as in right position toward God, on
guard and unaffrighted by the ashes from the
mountain of death. do not suppose that
am any more of n coward than most people,
but declare to you that would not dare to
sleep tonight II there were any being in all
the earth with whom would not gladly
shake hands, lest, during the night hours,
my spirit dismissed to other realms, 1 should,
because of my unforgiving spirit, be denied
divine forgiveness.
"But," says some woman, ''there is a hor-
rid creature that has so injured me that rather
than make up with her I would die first "
Well, sister, you make take your choice
for one or the other it will be-your COM
plete pardon of her or Gods eternal BAN
ishment of you. "But," says some man,
"that fellow who cheated me out of those
goods, OF damaged my business credit, or
started that lie about me in the newspapers,
or by his perfidy broke up my domes-
tic happiness, forgive him / cannot-for-
give him l will not" Well, brother, take
your choice You will never be at peace
with God till you are at peace with man.
Feeling as you now do, you would not get so
near the harbor of heaven as to see the light
ship. Better leave that man with the God who
said: vengeance is mine, will repay.n
You may say: ~ will make him sweat for
that yet, will make him squirm, mean to
pursue him TO the death, /" but you are dam
aging yourself more than you damage him
and you are making heaven for your own
soul an impossibility. If he will not be
reconciled to you, be reconciled to him. In
five or six hours it will be shutdown. The
dahlias will bloom against the western sky.
Somewhere between this and that take a
shovel and bury the old quarrel at least six
feet deep. "Letnot the sun go down on your
wrath.n
"But," you say, 81 have more than can
bear; too much is put upon me, and am not
to blame if l am somewhat revengeful and
unrelenting." Then | think of the little child
at the moving of some goods from a store.
The father was putting some rolls of goods
on the child's arm, package after package,
and some one said, ''That child is being over
loaded and as much ought not to be put upon
her," when the child responded, Father
knows how much can carry" and God, our
Father, will not allow too much imposition
on his children. In the day of eternity it
will be found you had not one annoyance too
many, not one aspiration too many, not one
outrage too many. Your heavenly Father
knows low much you can carry.
Again, we ought not to allow the passage
of the sunset hour before the dismissal Of all
our affronts, because we may associate the